


Fragmented

by LittleSammy



Series: Restless [2]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSammy/pseuds/LittleSammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after. It's not an easy thing for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragmented

**Author's Note:**

> This follows "Deprived" and has therefore very minor spoilers for 8x11 "Ships in the Night". This is less fluffy than the first story was, simply because we are dealing with two very screwed up people here, and I doubt that things will get any easier once they have crossed "that" line. But have faith in me. I want them to succeed. ;)
> 
> Also, it seems that lately my stories have a tendency to come in threes. Meaning, this is just the bridge to the third piece, which is actually one that I have been kicking around in my head for quite some months and was never sure I wanted to go there, simply because I usually - well, don't. ;) Third part (the really angsty one) should be up soonish.

Ziva David was, for the minute it took her to come fully awake, content.

She hadn't felt this warm and relaxed in a long time, and so she turned around with a happy sigh on her lips, still half-asleep and mumbling something she didn't understand herself, dangerously close to dozing off again. She didn't know the scent on the pillow under her cheek -- at least she didn't know it like this, so up close and personal, as if it were a blanket wrapped around her. Warm, too. Nice scent, mixing with her own. Reminding her that it wasn't her own bed she was in.

A soft touch to her forehead, just the slightest bit hesitant, and Ziva blinked, opening her eyes wide to stare at the unfamiliar pillow. Her pulse morphed from a soft tapping into a raging thunder, constricting her throat, and she turned her head slowly to look at the man she knew as her partner and friend, sitting beside her on the edge of the bed.

"Hey," Tony murmured softly and raised his hand to brush a strand of hair out of her face. His smile, so open and tender, made more of the unfamiliar warmth run through her, maybe because she had never seen him look at her like that. Maybe that was also the reason her panic spiked to new heights.

Ziva drew back slightly and raised her own hand to rub her face, just so she had a few seconds more to come up with a way to treat this situation. The same reflex that had urged her to flee earlier settled deep in her gut now and made her muscles tighten up with sudden anxiety. When she finally dared to look at his face again, she found an echoing tension there because he knew, of course. He knew her too well.

She blinked and rolled to her back, and his hand fell from her face and came to rest on the bed, between them. His fingers twitched once, and then he kept them carefully still and resorted to just watching her and waiting for how she would react in the bright light of no longer morning.

She watched him carefully, guardedly. Then she noticed the slacks and formal shirt he had dressed in.

"Are you going in?" she asked, confused, and his gaze dropped to his knees.

"No," he said, quietly. "Just--"

He shrugged and fell silent again, and when he raised his eyes again to meet hers, she saw the sudden insecurity flickering there. And no, he wasn't preparing to go to work. He had merely pulled on his armor, the one that kept him from exposing too much of himself, and what worked in the Yard might as well work in his own bedroom.

"I made breakfast," he said, trying to sound eager and only managing eager to please. He grimaced and looked at his watch. "Well, dinner by now, but if you want--"

And for some reason Ziva suddenly felt her breath pile up in her lungs until it burned, felt the pressure building, and she hated herself for what was about to happen, but right now it couldn't turn out any other way, because this was just too much, and too--

"No," she murmured, shaking her head. Fighting the urge to pull the covers up to her chin so she wouldn't feel so exposed. "I think I'd rather... go home. Shower." And then she made a face herself and sniffed to take the worst of the bite out of her words. "About time, don't you think?"

He stared at her quietly, and with every second she met his gaze, she could see him withdraw further from her. And to her surprise she found that this actually hurt, because there was a tiny part of her that urged her to touch him now and have his arms around her again and crawl back into bed with her until it all made sense.

"Want me to drive you home?" he offered suddenly, fresh tension ringing in his voice. "You know, return the favor."

Her lips parted, and she really tried to find the words that would set this right, but she couldn't come up with any, and she was too afraid to reach for him now because he looked at her as if he might slap her hand away should she decide to try.

And then he suddenly shrugged again, awkward this time because his body was radiating tension by now.

"Fine," he said and jumped to his feet. His hand came up, running through his hair and almost tearing at it, and the gesture was so full of anger that Ziva pressed her lips together tightly while she stared at his back.

He was almost out of the bedroom when he stopped, took a deep breath and then half-turned his head, just enough so he could see her out of the corner of his eye.

"Just for the record," he said, and his voice was cold and biting now. "I'm not the one treating this like a cheap bar fling."

*** *** ***

It wasn't hard to find out where he had run off to. The sound of slammed cabinet doors led her to the kitchen, and when Ziva hesitantly stepped around the corner, she found him busy shoveling scrambled eggs out of a pan and into the trash. Toast and bacon followed soon, and Ziva bit her lip because it made her stomach rumble even while he disposed of it.

"I'm sorry," she said, and the words surprised them both. 

For a moment his hand clenched around the spatula that he had used to scrape the eggs out of the pan. "Yeah, whatever," he pressed out harshly and threw the tool into the sink with more force than necessary.

And that hurt once more, but she couldn't even blame him.

"Tony, I'm not used to this--"

"To what? Sleeping around with your partners? I thought that was standard practice where you come from." The acid in his voice burned and made her skin itch, and Ziva's hands flexed from the fight she gave herself while she tried not to hit him. 

She knew they would both regret this whole conversation -- possible even the whole incident. She had already begun to regret it, because it would change things and it would shake them out of their safe rut and drag so much out into the open. So much they both weren't prepared to deal with. She stared at his squared shoulders and his rigid back while her throat tightened more with the bitter taste of regret, and she had to concentrate very hard on not yelling at him or throwing things around.

"This isn't Mossad," she pressed out through gritted teeth eventually. Then she forced herself to add, "And this wasn't sleeping around." Because that was the truth, and a simple one at that. And it was also what made this whole affair such a scary thing.

She heard him breathe out slowly, and some of the angry tension seemed to flow out of him with that. "Could have fooled me," he murmured, and she knew it was her own damn fault, but his words still ripped out a tiny piece of her heart and threw it back into her face.

He pressed his palms to the counter and leaned against it, and she watched his head fall forward. His shoulders slumped in defeat, and she suddenly just wanted to reach out and touch him and rub his back, but she wasn't sure if he would allow it, and she didn't know if this was appropriate. If there even was such a thing as appropriate after... well, after whatever this was. 

She shivered and rubbed her own arms, wondering about the last time she had felt so exposed, so vulnerable. Granted, she was standing in her partner's kitchen buck naked...

"Do you have a spare toothbrush?" she asked suddenly, and that made him blink in minor confusion. 

"Yeah," he said quietly, not moving, still giving her his back. He hesitated, just long enough that she wished she could just rewind their lives and start this day all over again and maybe, this time, not screw it all up. Then the moment passed, and he sighed and looked at her over his shoulder. "Bathroom. With a towel and a t-shirt."

She met his eyes, and the tired sadness she saw in them made her pulse stumble over itself once more. It hurt to see him like this, and it was not an expression she wanted on him. It was also an expression she alone had put on his face. And she alone could take it away again, because this was the only way true partnership worked.

"I will take a shower then," she said firmly, pretending to be more sure about this than she really was, because what she felt for him clearly warred with what her instincts told her to do. "And then we will sort this out."

He turned towards her and watched her carefully while he crossed his arms in front of his chest. Then he nodded, still tense, but no longer quite as aggressive. "I'll be right here."

Her pulse still did funny things to her while she mirrored his nod. Her naked feet made soft sounds on his hardwood floor.

*** *** ***

He didn't wait for her in the kitchen after all. She heard the door to the bathroom click when she was almost done with her shower, and so it didn't surprise her when she came out of the shower stall and saw him lean against the sink, his arms crossed again, waiting for her to finish up.

Ziva tilted her head and watched him quietly while he handed her a towel for her hair, and that felt so scarily normal and everyday that it smoothed over some of the strangeness of the new and unfamiliar situation between them. And she found that old habits and knowing him like she did was enough that she couldn't help the smile that tugged at her mouth now.

"Impatient much?" she asked, took the towel and began to rub water out of her curls.

"Yeah, well." His smile was fleeting, almost as quickly gone as it had shown up, but the second it lasted it seemed genuine. And then he suddenly asked, "What is this, Ziva?" And she knew that what he really meant was, what did she want this to be.

She watched him quietly while she tried to sort through her feelings. Which sounded simple, but it wasn't, not for Ziva, not after all these years of messing up and being messed up and trying to find her way and losing it more often than succeeding. So what _did_ she want this to be?

She tilted her head and bit her lip, and while she stared at him, all shoulders and muscle, she thought that she loved his arms. And his smile. His mouth, too. And a few hours ago she had learned that she actually loved the things he could do with his mouth when he wasn't babbling about movies or cars or sport. Or eating messily.

"I didn't have much time to think about this, Tony," she said eventually. There was the barest hint of a tease in her voice, and she hoped that he would get it anyway, simply because she was so bad at actually spelling things out. He got her all these other times, after all, every day, every moment they spent together.

And he did get her, of course, and so he sighed and gave her a nod. "Fair enough," he said and turned to put down the lid of the toilet and sit down on it. He blinked, slowly, and from the way he watched her she knew that he was breathing carefully and -- much like her -- trying not to freak out.

She took the bath towel he had laid out for her and began to dry herself off methodically while she tried to figure out how she wanted to deal with this. His eyes were on her the whole time, unnerving, slightly curious, a little interested, bit by bit losing the self-imposed distance he'd wrapped around himself while he was waiting for how "dealing with this" would turn out.

It occurred to her just then that it should feel strange to be naked around him like that, but wasn't, not at all. And then she realized that this was another thing she liked about being with him -- that they never felt awkward around each other, no matter what exactly happened between them. At least not as long as they didn't think about what they were doing.

And just like that, she had come to the heart of the matter.

She bit her lip while she hung the towel up to dry, blinking, sorting through what she liked and wanted and longed for, trying to weigh it in with the things that didn't sit quite right. Trying not to think, but feel.

"What this is," she began eventually, her back still to him, and she thought about what she wanted this to be. A dozen things ran through her head, but the most urgent one of them was that she wanted this to stay normal -- not normal like it used to be, but rather normal as if they did this, these sleepovers, every other night and it wasn't just a glitch, a slip of the tongue, an instant that was better forgotten than pursued. Because it had felt good, and if she was honest with herself just this once, it hadn't just felt good because they'd both been so out of it and longing for the closeness of another human being.

She turned to face Tony and found that she wasn't prepared for the way he looked at her -- so open and vulnerable again, so nervous, so close to breaking and out of patience and a little lost in the painful anticipation that this, like everything in his life, wouldn't turn into what _he_ wanted it to be.

And she bit her lip to contain the smile that threatened to spread on her face, because God help her, if he ever found out how much that look of his affected her and made her want to cuddle him and hold him close and assure him that everything was going to be alright, even if she didn't believe in it herself... if that ever happened, she was _so_ screwed.

"What this is is simple," she said. Her naked feet barely made a sound on the tiles as she moved over to where he sat and reached out to touch him and run a hand through his hair. His eyelids fluttered shut at the sensation, and he clearly enjoyed it, but there was the smallest frown and a hint of suspicion left, a hint of disbelief, and Ziva knew that she would have to work hard to make them disappear completely.

His hands came up, resting on her hips hesitantly, and it took him a few more moments until he could muster up enough nerves to pull her closer and run his fingers over her skin, exploring her. And just like that, it was Ziva's turn to look at him with her barriers crumbling until she couldn't hide the sudden emotion that welled up inside her and threatened to choke her. Because this was what she wanted, after all.

"It's not over yet?" he suggested, and Ziva breathed out slowly, her fingers tightening in his hair.

She wanted to agree in vocal form. Wanted to tell him that yes, he was right, and no, this clearly wasn't over yet, and maybe it would never be, just like Gibbs had suggested. Her voice failed her, though, and just then, his warm breath across her chest and his fingertips running over her thighs distracted her and made thinking too hard to keep up for now. And so she settled for sitting down on his lap and digging her fingers into his hair and kissing him until he, too, lost his train of thought and didn't want to talk about things anymore, but do them instead.


End file.
